Plans to restore the Philip Johnson-designed New York State Pavilion at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park have been inching along slowly over the past five years. Now, the project finally has a construction start date, Untapped Cities reported. Work will begin by the end of the month and is expected to be completed in March 2021. As 6sqft previously reported, the project has acquired just over $24 million in funding from the Mayor’s office, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, City Council, and a FEMA grant for Hurricane Sandy repairs.

The structure was designed by Johnson and Lev Zetlin for the 1964 World’s Fair to “embody the architectural essence of Space Age futurism.” Though all pavilions were supposed to be demolished within 90 days of the fair’s end, the New York State Pavilion was deemed “too expensive to tear down” by the Landmark Preservation Commission. It’s since become better known as a historic ruin or a “hulking 54-year-old relic of the World’s Fair,” as amNY once put it.

The scope of the restoration work includes structural preservation of the observation towers, waterproofing the tower bases, improvements to the electrical infrastructure and restoring the architectural lighting design of the observation towers and the Tent of Tomorrow, which will cascade down from the landing platforms and emanate from the stairwells. The Tent of Tomorrow was last revamped with a $3 million, bright yellow paint job in 2015.

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